Hawn nodded. ‘It was an entirely accidental meeting. We were introduced to him by a complete stranger who insisted on buying us drinks.’
‘When did you arrive in Istanbul?’
Hawn hesitated. ‘Two days ago.’
‘The very same day you visited the cafe?’ The man’s black eyes did not shift from Hawn’s. ‘Don’t you think that’s rather an odd thing for two tourists to do, on their first day in Istanbul? Our city has so many magnificent sights — yet you two choose to visit the poorest, the filthiest district in the city. It is not even as though you were seeking out the low life — prostitutes and belly dancers. You would find those off Taksim. Instead, you choose Kumkapi.’
‘I am not a conventional tourist.’ Hawn spoke with forced pride. ‘You seem to be talking about those busloads of camera-covered morons who trek through the bazaars and round the Blue Mosque like herds of cattle. We’re interested in the real Istanbul. And I don’t care if it is poor and stinking. It exists.’
The man on the cushion gave a broken-toothed smile. ‘I congratulate you, my dear sir, on your eloquence. Unfortunately there is one small matter which rather spoils it. You are staying at the Pera Palace, are you not?’ He smiled again. ‘Do not look so surprised. You see, the day before yesterday you hired a car from there. You asked the driver specifically to take you to a certain cafe in Kumkapi. A cafe frequented by ex-wrestlers. You see, the driver of that car is a friend of mine. He thought your behaviour was odd, and he reported it to me.’
‘Why?’
‘Please, my dear sir. Do not take me for a fool. I have already explained that my work requires discretion. I do not like foreigners who spy on me. I do not like foreigners who talk to one of my employees, and discuss contraband in cigarettes, and then next day that employee is taken away by the police.’
‘You’re mistaken. I had no illicit dealings with this man Baka at all. The fact that he has been arrested is a total coincidence.’
‘Is it a coincidence that on your first day in Istanbul you insisted on visiting the cafe where most of my employees spend their free time?’
‘We were looking for somewhere with atmosphere. As I said, somewhere well off the tourist beat.’
The big man began to fill his pipe from a porcelain bowl. ‘Mr Hawn, why have you come to Istanbul?’
‘For a holiday.’
He slowly shook his head. ‘I’m going to be gentle with you. Usually people like you are found in a backstreet so badly injured that they spend the next six months in hospital. There is a lot of robbery — what you call “mugging” — in Istanbul. You would not find yourself attracting much attention from the police. And our hospitals are not very good.
‘However, I will give you a chance. And besides, you have such a charming ladyfriend — I should not like to see her harmed. I will ask you again. What are you doing in Istanbul? Or shall I put it another way? What were you hoping to do?’
Anna had been sitting silently beside Hawn, pale, her hands pressed together in her lap. Her voice now broke in with soft measured fury: ‘Just who the hell do you think you are? You’re behaving like some cheap gangster out of a 1930s B-movie. We come to Istanbul as tourists and happen to visit a cafe where we’re bought a few drinks by a stranger, and introduced to another stranger whom we agree to meet again, and just because he’s been arrested, your “heavies” pick us up and march us round to this shop and up into this ridiculous room. Who do you think you are? Sydney Greenstreet?’
The man, who had lain listening impassively, looked puzzled. ‘Greenstreet?’
‘Never mind. He was an actor. And a lot better one than you are. You say you spoke to the chauffeur who drove us to the cafe. Did he tell you that we specifically wanted to go somewhere where wrestlers meet?’
‘You are interested in wrestling?’
‘We thought the place might have atmosphere. But we’ve explained all this already. Now will you call your bodyguard outside and let us go.’
The man began to light his pipe. The only sound in the room was the heavy ticking of the grandfather clock. He looked up at last with his cracked smile.
‘I congratulate you, too, young lady, on your little speech. Unfortunately much of what you have said is true. We Turks so often behave like the films. The cinema is very popular here — more popular even than wrestling. People think of Turkey as an exotic, even romantic country. But apart from a few mosques and palaces that have been turned into museums, and the traditional dancing put on for the tourists, we are at heart a coarse primitive people.
‘I myself had the advantage of being educated at your excellent Trinity College, Cambridge. People tell me I speak like a true English gentleman — though I hardly look like one. I am not a gentleman. I am an uncivilized Turk, and my methods of business are also uncivilized. It is useless to lose your temper with me. I do not even mind being abused, providing you do not insult the memory of my father or my mother.’
He settled back into his cushion and drew on his pipe. ‘But we are straying from the point. I asked you what you were hoping to do in Istanbul, and you persist in telling me that you are innocent tourists. It may interest you to know that after your chauffeur had reported back to me. I checked with the Pera Palace Hotel. I discovered that you, Mr Hawn, are described in your passport as a journalist. While you, Miss Admiral, are a
